Michael Chabon once said, “I scan the
tables of contents of magazines, looking for Antonya Nelson's name,
hoping that she has decided to bless us again.” And now she has blessed
us again, with a bounty of the stories for which she is so beloved. Her
stories are clear-eyed, hard-edged, beautifully formed. In the title
story, “Funny Once,” a couple held together by bad behavior fall into a
lie with their more responsible friends. In “The Village,” a woman
visits her father at a nursing home, recalling his equanimity at her
teenage misdeeds and gaining a new understanding of his own past
indiscretions. In another, when a troubled girl in the neighborhood goes
missing, a mother worries increasingly about her teenage son’s
relationship with a bad-news girlfriend. In the novella “Three Wishes,”
siblings muddle through in the aftermath of their elder brother’s
too-early departure from the world.

The landscape of this book is the wide open spaces of Kansas, Texas,
New Mexico, and Colorado. Throughout, there is the pervasive desire to
drink to forget, to have sex with the wrong people, to hit the road and
figure out later where to stop for the night. These characters are
aging, regretting actions both taken and not, inhabiting their extended
adolescences as best they can. And in FUNNY ONCE, their flawed humanity is made beautiful, perfectly observed by one of America’s best short story writers.

Events at Brazos Bookstore: A few things to remember

Reserve your book online at least 24 hours in advance. Call 713-523-0701 to reserve books on the day of the signing.

Please buy books to-be-signed directly from us.

Get here early because parking in our lot is limited. There is abundant street parking nearby.

We can have your book signed for you even if you can’t make it. Please pay in advance to guarantee signed books.

These guidelines apply to all in-store events unless otherwise noted.

Thus, these guidelines to do not apply to events held outside of Brazos Bookstore.

YOUR FACE TOMORROW Book 1: Our hero, Jaime Deza, separated from his wife in Madrid, is a bit adrift in London until his old friend Sir Peter Wheeler--retired Oxford don and semi-retired master spy--recruits him for a new career in British Intelligence. Deza possesses a rare gift for seeing behind the masks people wear. He is soon observing interviews conducted by Her Majesty's secret service: variously shady international businessmen one day, would-be coup leaders the next. Seductively, this metaphysical thriller explores past, present, and future in the ever-more-perilous 21st century. This compelling and enigmatic tour de force from one of Europe's greatest writers continues with Volume Two, Dance and Dream.